Love Hina creator opens line of dialogue with Japanese government fearing Western censorship

[Jman]

https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2020/06/29/love-hina-manga-creator-discusses-mangas-freedom-of-expression-with-japanese-government
 

Long story short, Ken Akamatsu went directly to the Japanese diet because he and other manga creators are terrified of being forced to adjust to the censorship happy West.

Naturally outrage channels are having a field day with this news -

 

[The1gairon]

Now that's what I call, being STRONG in the face of Dieting!

[HardcoreHunter]

I feel like patreon is going to have the same backlash and rebound that Tumblr had. A year ago Tumblr was like we're removing all the porn. Then everyone dropped Tumblr. Checked the site the other day. So many news feeds people have are just full of porn. Sony has lost a lot of revenue by publishers just jumping to the PC market because they said that they're cracking down and censoring content, because rated M games where you can murder people is okay but sexualizing characters is not. The games with woke themes in them that they're putting out are bombing. TV series that are trying to appeal to this small demographic that want this kind of content are going bust. The Sony Ghostbusters reboot went bust more because of the toxic get woke or be a misogynist marketing that they had. It is failing hard for these companies. 

The artist that makes these images below is a Japanese woman and people on twitter were calling her a sick racist pedophile on twitter which made her cry and leave the platform for a while. The context was that she had a character saying dues vult dressed as a knight. The thing is that she wouldn't have known the western use of the word which many don't know unless you're on 4chan and use /v/ and /pol/. There's a game where you play as either Crusaders or Islamic defenders and people on the Crusaders side spam duse vult which is semi translated to God wills it/It's gods will. /pol/ adopted it to say when talking about ethnic cleansing/genocide. I mean it's easy to tell her grasp on english isn't the best, but the flipped shit on her going full toxic. 

I'm in the camp of if you're outraged by something then I guess it's not for you, don't watch or consume said media. Don't bash other people and dictate their artistic freedom. Companies get scared by this but honestly the only times I've ever seen profits drop is when they cave. If companies would push back they would see that the ones yelling and screaming are not their consumer base.  

 

[Top Gun]

38 minutes ago, HardcoreHunter said:

Sony has lost a lot of revenue by publishers just jumping to the PC market because they said that they're cracking down and censoring content, because rated M games where you can murder people is okay but sexualizing characters is not. The games with woke themes in them that they're putting out are bombing.

Yeah man The Last of Us 2 selling more than 4 million copies in its opening weekend and becoming the fastest-selling PS4 exclusive is totally bombing.  Totally.

Anyways Ken Akamatsu might have a point if he'd ever managed to create something that wasn't steaming garbage, but, well...

[Jman]

Yeah, Love Hina kind of...sucked, didn’t it?

I’m as anti censorship as they come, but it sucked.

Edited June 30, 2020 by Jman

[Top Gun]

That, Negima, whatever other crap he made recently that had a bunch of Negima people show up, who knows what else...

What's weird is that he's actually voiced some very good opinions over the years.  He was vocal against that bullshit Youth Ordinance bill, he's very supportive of doujin artists, and he has a reasonable stance toward the issue of piracy.  Yet he couples all of that with producing absolute pablum.  Can't win 'em all I guess.

And I mean I see his point here, but at the same time, if you're going to intentionally seek out huge international markets, you're occasionally going to need to tailor your products to the local standards in said markets to be successful there.  The alternative is you keep doing what you were always doing, but don't be surprised if people give your work the side-eye.  I'm definitely against censorship, but at the same time there are commercial realities at play.

[PokeNirvash]

I admittedly have nostalgia for Negima (which my sister used to pronounce as if it were spelled Nejima), owing to the fact that it was one of the first anime I watched that wasn't broadcast on basic cable stateside, but I don't have any interest in re-exploring it beyond the XEBEC series or Shaft's OVA DVDs I have yet to touch. The Shaft sequel series does its own different thing from the manga, and the rest of the OVAs require reading the manga which I don't have the patience for right now, so both of those are no-gos. I'm not even gonna think about touching UQ Holder.

As for Love Hina, let's just say any interest I have in that is rooted in morbid curiosity. Even then, I'm gonna stick with Mayo Chiki as my current "harem anime where the harem beats up the MC" series for the time being.

Edited June 30, 2020 by PokeNirvash

[Chapinator_X]

Ken Akamatsu is making new manga!? More importantly, Ken Akamatsu is trying to make a manga that can be popular in the States?

He’s always excelled the most by not straying too far from tacky harem tropes, but harem has always been very niche in the States. As much as I dug his manga back in the day and crushed on Kitsune, they were never meant to be mainstream or timeless, especially now that they look far tackier than contemporaries like Nisekoi or Quintessential Quintuplets. 

You’ll find a ton of Love Hina and Negima at the library, but those series’ were never going to make Naruto money over here. He’d have to create more violent stories if he’s that concerned with trying to make his own Demon Slayer or Black Clover over here. Negima had some more action to it, but was always going to get bogged down with its early chapters of Love Hina hijinks with 50+ girls that no one would ever be able to keep up with unless they had the wiki page opened.

Thats not to say he doesn't have credible concerns about about censoring his work for mass appeal overseas. It’s been the unfortunate kiss of death for a lot of ecchi video games that are localized for the West. It just sounds weird coming from someone who would never have to go those lengths because his works were never popular enough here to warrant such heavy handed censorship outside of the policies from shitty mid-2000’s publishers like Tokyopop. And nowadays, it’s much easier to just put plastic wrap on an 18+ manga than butcher it for children and soccer moms to enjoy. 

[HardcoreHunter]

2 hours ago, Top Gun said:

Yeah man The Last of Us 2 selling more than 4 million copies in its opening weekend and becoming the fastest-selling PS4 exclusive is totally bombing.  Totally.

Anyways Ken Akamatsu might have a point if he'd ever managed to create something that wasn't steaming garbage, but, well...

Didn't say all the games. The last last of us game was one of the best selling games on the platform, not really any shock that the next one did well. Had the first game had Joel as a gay protagonist making out with Bill in the trailer it probably wouldn't have sold that well though. DOA 6 only sold around 300k copies due to censorship while 5 sold 1.6 million. Cod WWII had the 3rd worst opening week of a main series game, I mean being a woman fighting on the front lines in WWII didn't happen but I think it was an alt reality because people had mech shit so it's not an issue. Though wtf is the option to be a black woman and play as a nazi??? Why would they even make that an option? Wolfenstine  new order had a black female communist as a hero and had far worse sales than the previous game. Youka-laylee lost over half of it's pre-order sales when they cut jontron. Jon even put out a tweet telling people that his role was minima and only involved him making a few gibberish sounds and not to have his removal be the reason behind canceling. The game soon dropped to under $20. Dishonored 2 went bust. So we get a success story for about every dozen or so flops. Especially when elements are just leached onto an existing IP or censored when an IP is known for fanservice. Can't really think of any IPs though that weren't attached to an existing IP that have done well. 

 

[HardcoreHunter]

5 minutes ago, Chapinator-800 said:

Thats not to say he doesn't have credible concerns about about censoring his work for mass appeal overseas. It’s been the unfortunate kiss of death for a lot of ecchi video games that are localized for the West. It just sounds weird coming from someone who would never have to go those lengths because his works were never popular enough here to warrant such heavy handed censorship outside of the policies from shitty mid-2000’s publishers like Tokyopop. And nowadays, it’s much easier to just put plastic wrap on an 18+ manga than butcher it for children and soccer moms to enjoy. 

I have more worries about some of the censorship lines. Like was being said in the video some places are censoring things based on the face of a character looking too young, or the age is too young. That's like 90% of any anime with a romance or ecchi/fanservice element in it. Should we Ban series like Evangelion, Tenchi, School Rumble, Highschool DXD, Naruto, etc. Then what about the endangerment or death of minors I don't think we can have that in a world where there is no line between reality and fiction. I remember years back some edge lord kid at my old HS got caught with a "hit list" in a Death Note book. Parents freaked and Walmart and Best Buy removed their anime sections for like 3 years. I digress I don't think that Japan should try to cater to Americans. Their own market is the majority of sales for anime and manga. If you like the series then buy it if not then fuck off and find something else. Like if I wrote Anger Orchard and told them I like carbonated cider but I don't want the alcohol and to make just carbonated cider for my preference, they'd probably tell me that their product is not for me and to buy a soda machine and cider. Then rather than going to an alt option I get pissy and start a twitter campaign to force what I want.  I mean for a capitalist society we sure have an Authoritarian approach towards companies. 

[Chapinator_X]

1 minute ago, HardcoreHunter said:

I have more worries about some of the censorship lines. Like was being said in the video some places are censoring things based on the face of a character looking too young, or the age is too young. That's like 90% of any anime with a romance or ecchi/fanservice element in it. Should we Ban series like Evangelion, Tenchi, School Rumble, Highschool DXD, Naruto, etc. Then what about the endangerment or death of minors I don't think we can have that in a world where there is no line between reality and fiction. I remember years back some edge lord kid at my old HS got caught with a "hit list" in a Death Note book. Parents freaked and Walmart and Best Buy removed their anime sections for like 3 years. I digress I don't think that Japan should try to cater to Americans. Their own market is the majority of sales for anime and manga. If you like the series then buy it if not then fuck off and find something else. Like if I wrote Anger Orchard and told them I like carbonated cider but I don't want the alcohol and to make just carbonated cider for my preference, they'd probably tell me that their product is not for me and to buy a soda machine and cider. Then rather than going to an alt option I get pissy and start a twitter campaign to force what I want.  I mean for a capitalist society we sure have an Authoritarian approach towards companies. 

Unless it’s Kodomo no Jikan levels of overtness about the characters’ ages, I doubt they’d retroactively go back to get rid of popular anime with sexualized teenagers. Not when Netflix just redubbed Evangelion to be even less Westernized. 

The brunt of anime/manga censorship in the West came and went around the time that kids were getting in trouble for carrying Death Notes or burying themselves in playgrounds to reenact Gaara’s jutsus.

Manga companies have had more liberty since the 2010’s to simply plastic wrap mangas or change a 15 to a 17 to avoid scrutiny if they must. Some Funi dubs Westernize their scripts, but it’s not much of an issue if you watch subs or know enough basic Japanese to get a gist of what the lines would sound like. I don’t buy the reactionary YouTube videos where commentators act like it’s tyranny for a line or two isn’t like how it was in the fansubs. 

The worst that’s happened is withdrawing Interspecies Reviewers, but that was a case where both Japanese TV stations and English localization companies had no idea what they were broadcasting until they got porn. And that lends itself mostly to contemporary Japanese crackdowns on   anime & manga.

[Gina Szanboti]

Y'all talk like we're the only market that changes shit up during localization.  Japan has far more to worry about in catering to China's censorship than the US's.  Even Hollywood censors itself or films alternate scenes to be able to sell in China. It's the biggest market in the world, so of course anyone who wants to have a presence there will toe their party line.  If they're saying "we don't want to be censored in the West" it's only because they're afraid of offending the Chinese censors by complaining about them.

[HardcoreHunter]

7 minutes ago, Chapinator-800 said:

Unless it’s Kodomo no Jikan levels of overtness about the characters’ ages, I doubt they’d retroactively go back to get rid of popular anime with sexualized teenagers. Not when Netflix just redubbed Evangelion to be even less Westernized. 

The brunt of anime/manga censorship in the West came and went around the time that kids were getting in trouble for carrying Death Notes or burying themselves in playgrounds to reenact Gaara’s jutsus.

Manga companies have had more liberty since the 2010’s to simply plastic wrap mangas or change a 15 to a 17 to avoid scrutiny if they must. Some Funi dubs Westernize their scripts, but it’s not much of an issue if you watch subs or know enough basic Japanese to get a gist of what the lines would sound like. I don’t buy the reactionary YouTube videos where commentators act like it’s tyranny for a line or two isn’t like how it was in the fansubs. 

The worst that’s happened is withdrawing Interspecies Reviewers, but that was a case where both Japanese TV stations and English localization companies had no idea what they were broadcasting until they got porn. And that lends itself mostly to contemporary Japanese crackdowns on   anime & manga.

Kodomo No Jiken's anime really came out at the worst possible time in Japan. Right when there was a half dozen cases of school teachers having sex/molesting students in Japan. Also a curve ball that it's a woman who wrote that series. That one is a little more cut and dry as it's elementary school kids. I can separate reality and fantasy though I know that there are people who can't or choose to view it the same as if it's a real person. Though then we have the issue that has been popping up and that is the baba loli/old person in a loli body. Character like Bisky from HXH really in her 50s but has a loli body. Some series have elves, dragons, vampires, and other monster girls hundreds of years old but look like children. Dokuro Chan did the reverse hand had a stacked adult looking woman angel who was really only 9 years old.  

Then there are lots of anime where kids are hurt or killed. Should those stop being a thing? Really I think japan would say fuck off if the outcry got that far because battle shounen are their bread and butter. Though if we're treating fiction as if it's real life then where do you draw a line if there even is one since according to some there is no difference. 

It is odd though that you brought up the kids emulating anime characters or having a chuunibyou phase. I don't really keep up on kids trends really, but it seems like while anime is more popular with kids and teens there is far less chuunibyou shit happening. The anime bubble pretty much started my senior year so there weren't really people openly admitting to watching anime at my school. Though youtube was full of cringe like people practicing hand signs and dancing the hare hare yukai. You don't really see kids online anymore doing that shit. Nearly every other anime has some kind of dance, you don't see kids doing that. I wonder if kids became more self aware of cringe or what happened with that.  Then again tik tok is a thing so maybe the cringe just changed some. As for parent outrage, it's hard to say. Our generation is very mixed on what is and isn't acceptable. It's kinda odd how the more liberal side of the anime community is for censorship while the conservative side is heavily against it. 

My only problem with Interspecies Reviewers and funimation is that funimation sent out DMCA against streaming sites that were hosting fansubs of it. That's kinda horse shit in my book. If you're just going to hold onto the license and do nothing with it, don't be an asshat and make it impossible for anyone to view it just because you're embarrassed that you fucked up. Then they were issuing DMCA's on youtube for people talking about it. It's like come on guys just take the hit on the chin and move on. 

[Top Gun]

1 hour ago, HardcoreHunter said:

Didn't say all the games. The last last of us game was one of the best selling games on the platform, not really any shock that the next one did well. Had the first game had Joel as a gay protagonist making out with Bill in the trailer it probably wouldn't have sold that well though. DOA 6 only sold around 300k copies due to censorship while 5 sold 1.6 million. Cod WWII had the 3rd worst opening week of a main series game, I mean being a woman fighting on the front lines in WWII didn't happen but I think it was an alt reality because people had mech shit so it's not an issue. Though wtf is the option to be a black woman and play as a nazi??? Why would they even make that an option? Wolfenstine  new order had a black female communist as a hero and had far worse sales than the previous game. Youka-laylee lost over half of it's pre-order sales when they cut jontron. Jon even put out a tweet telling people that his role was minima and only involved him making a few gibberish sounds and not to have his removal be the reason behind canceling. The game soon dropped to under $20. Dishonored 2 went bust. So we get a success story for about every dozen or so flops. Especially when elements are just leached onto an existing IP or censored when an IP is known for fanservice. Can't really think of any IPs though that weren't attached to an existing IP that have done well. 

 

Sales issues for most of these games you mentioned have almost nothing to do with "getting woke" or whatever the fuck and everything to do with them having legitimate issues.  Like just as one single example, Yooka-Laylee received a decidedly lukewarm critical response due to its basic level design.  Angry mouth-breathing YouTubers like to pretend their opinions represent the popular consensus, but shock of shocks, they usually don't.  How many of the people that jump on the "OMG Sony is censoring boobies!!1!1" bandwagon had even heard of some of the games in question before they became a news story?

[HardcoreHunter]

36 minutes ago, Gina Szanboti said:

Y'all talk like we're the only market that changes shit up during localization.  Japan has far more to worry about in catering to China's censorship than the US's.  Even Hollywood censors itself or films alternate scenes to be able to sell in China. It's the biggest market in the world, so of course anyone who wants to have a presence there will toe their party line.  If they're saying "we don't want to be censored in the West" it's only because they're afraid of offending the Chinese censors by complaining about them.

China I think is more interested in taking anime and manga for themselves than accepting that they enjoy something made by their natural enemy. They have been offering animators and mangaka higher wages to move to China and create Anime and Manga for the Chinese market. This has caused some worry in the industry as they may have to start treating their workers as if they were human and dear god....pay a livable wage. 

[HardcoreHunter]

3 minutes ago, Top Gun said:

Sales issues for most of these games you mentioned have almost nothing to do with "getting woke" or whatever the fuck and everything to do with them having legitimate issues.  Like just as one single example, Yooka-Laylee received a decidedly lukewarm critical response due to its basic level design.  Angry mouth-breathing YouTubers like to pretend their opinions represent the popular consensus, but shock of shocks, they usually don't.  How many of the people that jump on the "OMG Sony is censoring boobies!!1!1" bandwagon had even heard of some of the games in question before they became a news story?

I mean does it really surprise you when series like DOA which are known for fanservice get censored. I mean they already changed the 14 year old girls age to age Unknown, what more do you want!  If youtube mouthbreathers have anything to do with sales then Last of us 2 wouldn't have sold a single copy, because all people did was bitch about that since it's E3 reveal. Still I think it would be better if they just made new IPs to cater to these crowds that want everything that isn't in an existing franchise, rather than insert it into existing ones. Hell Overwatch has a few lesbian and gay characters. Though they were doing a story line with Ginji and Mercy and fans flipped shit till it got dropped because they didn't want a straight romance in their gay game, and wanted mercy to be in a relationship with phara. I don't really see how that's any different from the mouthbreathers flipping shit about ellie being a lesbian. 

[The1gairon]

On the downside, this worries me. The uncensored and more mature subject matter is one of the things that got me into anime in the first place because you never get that in American media.

[Gina Szanboti]

On 6/30/2020 at 4:19 PM, HardcoreHunter said:

I can separate reality and fantasy though I know that there are people who can't or choose to view it the same as if it's a real person

No, it's the fact that it normalizes adults sexualizing children.  When kids are hurt or killed in anime or live action dramas, it's not usually presented as being desirable.  It's how you show the character is evil for not sparing children or deliberately targeting them.  The exception is shounen action, which is power fantasy for boys who dream of being heroes and taking risks while doing some of the hurting and killing themselves.  Most kids recognize real life is not like that.

But lusting after children is presented as harmless and funny or hot (except in porn, where harm may be the fetish - and the subtext that we wouldn't make this just for you, so you know you're not alone).  It's edgy and cool, and there's nothing wrong with it.  The teacher in KnJ is a nice guy who is just powerless in the face of a child's seduction.  Because it's as you suspected, kids really do want to sex up adults.  That's why I have a problem with it, not because I can't tell the difference between animation and real life.

As a serious novel, I wouldn't even have a problem with KnJ.  On paper it explores some serious issues that deserve attention.  But you can't deny that animating it and making it an erotic comedy with some dramatic elements changes the game.  The latter ends up looking like cover for the eroticism so that fans can righteously claim they're there for the drama and not the kiddie porn.

As for China's up and coming animation industry, that's a distraction from the point that Japanese creators still have to pander to them right now.

[HardcoreHunter]

3 minutes ago, Gina Szanboti said:

As a serious novel, I wouldn't even have a problem with KnJ.  On paper it explores some serious issues that deserve attention.  But you can't deny that animating it and making it an erotic comedy with some dramatic elements changes the game.  The latter ends up looking like cover for the eroticism so that fans can righteously claim they're there for the drama and not the kiddie porn.

 

I guess we differ from opinion on this, because I view all fictional media as being fine. I believe that people who are already not quite right in the head, could normalize these acts. In those cases though it's always someone was a creep from the start well before they were arrested. The problem is though the idea of "if removing this media that I don't see merit in will reduce a crime then it should be done". Which then can be brought over to the video game scare. Killing an NPC is not really something that 99.999% of gamers will act out in their lives. Though there's that .1% that are mentally unstable and might kill someone because of a game. I'm sure if devs would put in child murder in the games though that we'd have to have a huge increase of child murders because it's now normalized. 

I also feel that if something is viewed as fine in a book then it's fine in other mediums. Bridging mediums in my view just makes it more readily accessible to a larger audience. Larger audience more chances that someone who is a creep or deranged will see it. Some people are just fucked in the head.  It a very small percent of the population in america. Something like 0.04-0.08%. Out of that how many really are watching and buying anime? 

I mean it's fine to have a problem with it and not like it, but I view all fictional media as having a merit to exist. Like I don't like that one show that glamorizes teen suicide. I feel it's far more likely to be something that teens will act out than rape or murder. Though at the same time I do feel that it has a right to exist. Either way that will be an agree to disagree I guess. 

As for China and Japan though. It's kinda hard for the anime and manga studios to specifically cater to China. They ban shit like whinnie the pooh as a mocking depiction of their leader. They don't allow any depictions of Homosexuality, No Ghosts, Spirits, or depictions of a life after death or an afterlife, no graphic violence, No depictions of Chinese being villains, No depictions of Chinese being a gag character, No depictions of Chinese sterotypes ie always shut eyes, No Prophets, Chinese can not be rescued by someone of another race or nationality, Chinese cities can not be depicted as congested with traffic or run down, etc. 

So it's difficult for studios and editors to tell a mangaka to write their story around these limitations. When most of them are working freelance or are adapting an existing work. Grave of the Fireflies was banned for making the Japanese of WWII sympathetic. When the US caters to China it's like Oh hey Tony stark has a Chinese friend that gives him advice in a single scene and is never seen again. That is a lot harder for Japan. I'm sure someone working on GhostBusters was like wtf when China demanded there be not Ghosts in the film.

 

[Gina Szanboti]

You know that scene in IT where the kids basically had their pre-teen orgy in the cave?  I can deal with that in the novel because I get to control how I imagine it in my head.  But I do not want to see that scene played out with teen actors having to play it out on screen.  The point is there are differences in media, and what can pass in one, doesn't fly in another.  Hell, I've written some shit myself I'd never want to see animated or in live action, but I think it worked on the page.

If child murders were carried out in games as something cool that the heroes do?  Yeah, you might see some kids who shouldn't be playing those games but are, imitating them because the heroes made it look admirable.  And older teens might shrug off rl murders as no big deal, cause the good guys slaughter little kids all the time, who cares.  That's what I mean about differences in how it's portrayed mattering.  We already have dozens of cases where kids desensitized to death gleefully hound other kids to suicide for fun.  It just makes no sense to me to insist that media has zero influence on people, especially teens who are still forming their world views and self views, when advertisers spend billions to influence people.  If media had no influence, they wouldn't waste their money.

All those Chinese restrictions?  Almost all of them can be gotten around simply by not including Chinese characters.  Easy breezy.  And some of them don't even seem to be enforced.  I've seen quite a few Chinese-made series that revolve around life after death or reincarnated characters.  I've seen spirits, if not called "ghosts."  The first 2 Ghostbusters movies ran there, but the reboot didn't, not because of ghosts but because the box office was so poor for the first 2 that they didn't see the point since Chinese audiences just weren't interested.  I've seen some fairly graphic violence as well as BL-themed series that tiptoed around the issue, but the subtext was clear to anyone with eyes.  A lot of Japanese BL titles do likewise.  So yeah, most of them could pass muster if they wanted to.  If they don't want to, and think they can still make a profit, then they'll choose that.

[HardcoreHunter]

I mean if you don't want to see it in film then I'd just say that it's not for you, stick to the book. 

Wouldn't be heroes killing kids, just Antagonistic Protagonists. I mean if you can think of a way to make child murder look admirable I'd love to hear it. Though if I'm doing a genocide run in a game, nothing annoys me more than kids who can't die. If I'm going hero in a game, it actually adds some weight to my choices knowing that any character even kids could die. I think that is also something that has gone missing from Horror films. Old horror films kids could die. Also dogs, you never see dogs die in horror films anymore either. It helps you get invested in the story. Now if a kid is in a horror movie, I'm just like; well nothing bad is going to happen to them. Same goes for games, but anime subverts that in some series. I mean would Elfen Lied have had the same impact without those kids beating a dog to death then being torn apart by invisible vector arms? Death draws people into the story especially when you realize nobody is truly safe. 

I'm pretty sure kids and teens aren't going to get their desensitized by games or anime. When I was 4 one of my favorite films was Leprechaun, I thought it was the funniest shit. In the same way kids in the 00s would watch Shrek I would watch Leprechaun. Also Freddy Kruger, we had fucking toys of a burnt pedophile that would kill people in their dreams. Nobody made a knife glove and went out killing kids. Couple of years ago I was at a BBQ party and there were a few kids there. I was flipping around tv channels with nothing on,  and asked them what they liked watching. They weren't interested in cartoons at all, don't really blame them for what CN had been passing for content. Though what they were really into was Game of Thrones and Walking Dead. One show about killing zombies an people getting their faces smashed in with bats. Other has Incest, rape, murder, etc. I just don't see anime being the trigger that would set this generation off anymore than it set off our generation. 

I would be thankful if kids could learn to shrug shit off. I don't think anyone was ever that desensitized though by heroes killing people. Batman used to use a gun and murder his villains. Think of all the 80s heroes that would just murder people. Nobody was brain dead enough to be so desensitized that stuff happening in real life didn't affect them. The kids hounding other kids to kill themselves is nothing new, that shit dates back to at least the 30s if not longer.  The difference now is that social media plays a big part in kids lives so they don't get an escape, and parents need to become aware of their childs social media. Some of the stories I heard from my parents were fucking horrible. I even told them that they were fucked up and I wouldn't have been friends with either of them if we grew up in the same time. My one uncle pretty much told me that him and some friends got some retard killed which started a school bus rule. It was like -15 degrees, school was canceled but they tricked this retarded kid into staying out in the cold which was even colder with the windchill, and wait for the bus. Kid was crying and wanted to go home but they told him to keep waiting or they'd tell that he was skipping school. Got frostbite ended up dying from complications from it. School put in a rule that if it's under 30 degrees and the bus is 20 mins late that school is canceled.  I mean what media would have influenced that. They didn't even have a TV at the time, or even a fridge my dad and uncles were still using ice boxes. 

Media doesn't waste their money to have influence. If that were the case then the suicide shows would just be dedicated towards killing their fanbase. They're not big tobacco. They make entertainment and merchandise.  Subliminal messages in films are a character drinking a coke and then you thinking that you can go for a coke right about now. I don't know how many people watch an anime that has a loli character in it and say man I could really go for fucking a kid right about now; or someone kills a kid in a movie and makes people think that they'll be like their hero Pennywise the dancing clown.  Nobody watched Gacy and thought that dressing up as a clown raping young men and hiding their bodies under the house was going to be their life's passion. 

It's not easy when you're japan. The culture and media is filled with spirituality. Also the Chinese hold them to a more strict guideline as they still blame them over WWII. China started their no ghost policy in the late 90s. That's why the 2017 film was banned, but they still had the ones done in the late 80s and early 90s. Films like Crimson Peak were also banned for having ghosts. Here's a list of some of the anime/manga they banned a few years ago. 
 

 

Terror in Resonance

Blood-C

Highschool of the Dead

Ergo Proxy

Parasyte

The Skull Man

Another

Inferno Cop

Afro Samurai

Tokyo Ghoul √A

Sword Art Online II

Tokyo ESP

Tokyo Ravens

Devil May Cry

RIN - Daughters of Mnemosyne

The Testament of Sister New Devil

Attack on Titan

Corpse Party

Strike the Blood

Death Note

Deadman Wonderland

Date A Live II

Psycho-Pass

Devilman Lady

School Days

Those Who Hunt Elves

Elfen Lied

High School DxD

Samurai Bride

So, I Can't Play H!

Girls Bravo: Second Season

Kanokon

Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero

Sakura Diaries

Black Butler

Claymore

Dance in the Vampire Bund

 

[HardcoreHunter]

Also

My Hero Academia

 

 

[Gina Szanboti]

On 7/4/2020 at 12:02 AM, HardcoreHunter said:

I'm pretty sure kids and teens aren't going to get their desensitized by games or anime. When I was 4 one of my favorite films was Leprechaun, I thought it was the funniest shit. In the same way kids in the 00s would watch Shrek I would watch Leprechaun. Also Freddy Kruger, we had fucking toys of a burnt pedophile that would kill people in their dreams. Nobody made a knife glove and went out killing kids. Couple of years ago I was at a BBQ party and there were a few kids there. I was flipping around tv channels with nothing on,  and asked them what they liked watching. They weren't interested in cartoons at all, don't really blame them for what CN had been passing for content. Though what they were really into was Game of Thrones and Walking Dead. One show about killing zombies an people getting their faces smashed in with bats. Other has Incest, rape, murder, etc.

This is not the argument in favor of your position that you think it is... 

[HardcoreHunter]

45 minutes ago, Gina Szanboti said:

This is not the argument in favor of your position that you think it is... 

The point was that kids are watching this ultra violence and sexual shows and they aren't out doing them. They aren't simply apathetic when it happens in real life or around them like you claim. You have the same mind set as parents in the 80s saying Arnold Schwarzenegger was making kids violent. Except now it's not just kids but also adults being affected by this kind of media. So you really missed the point there. 

[ghostrek]

On 7/4/2020 at 3:02 AM, HardcoreHunter said:

I mean if you don't want to see it in film then I'd just say that it's not for you, stick to the book. 

Wouldn't be heroes killing kids, just Antagonistic Protagonists. I mean if you can think of a way to make child murder look admirable I'd love to hear it. Though if I'm doing a genocide run in a game, nothing annoys me more than kids who can't die. If I'm going hero in a game, it actually adds some weight to my choices knowing that any character even kids could die. I think that is also something that has gone missing from Horror films. Old horror films kids could die. Also dogs, you never see dogs die in horror films anymore either. It helps you get invested in the story. Now if a kid is in a horror movie, I'm just like; well nothing bad is going to happen to them. Same goes for games, but anime subverts that in some series. I mean would Elfen Lied have had the same impact without those kids beating a dog to death then being torn apart by invisible vector arms? Death draws people into the story especially when you realize nobody is truly safe. 

I'm pretty sure kids and teens aren't going to get their desensitized by games or anime. When I was 4 one of my favorite films was Leprechaun, I thought it was the funniest shit. In the same way kids in the 00s would watch Shrek I would watch Leprechaun. Also Freddy Kruger, we had fucking toys of a burnt pedophile that would kill people in their dreams. Nobody made a knife glove and went out killing kids. Couple of years ago I was at a BBQ party and there were a few kids there. I was flipping around tv channels with nothing on,  and asked them what they liked watching. They weren't interested in cartoons at all, don't really blame them for what CN had been passing for content. Though what they were really into was Game of Thrones and Walking Dead. One show about killing zombies an people getting their faces smashed in with bats. Other has Incest, rape, murder, etc. I just don't see anime being the trigger that would set this generation off anymore than it set off our generation. 

I would be thankful if kids could learn to shrug shit off. I don't think anyone was ever that desensitized though by heroes killing people. Batman used to use a gun and murder his villains. Think of all the 80s heroes that would just murder people. Nobody was brain dead enough to be so desensitized that stuff happening in real life didn't affect them. The kids hounding other kids to kill themselves is nothing new, that shit dates back to at least the 30s if not longer.  The difference now is that social media plays a big part in kids lives so they don't get an escape, and parents need to become aware of their childs social media. Some of the stories I heard from my parents were fucking horrible. I even told them that they were fucked up and I wouldn't have been friends with either of them if we grew up in the same time. My one uncle pretty much told me that him and some friends got some retard killed which started a school bus rule. It was like -15 degrees, school was canceled but they tricked this retarded kid into staying out in the cold which was even colder with the windchill, and wait for the bus. Kid was crying and wanted to go home but they told him to keep waiting or they'd tell that he was skipping school. Got frostbite ended up dying from complications from it. School put in a rule that if it's under 30 degrees and the bus is 20 mins late that school is canceled.  I mean what media would have influenced that. They didn't even have a TV at the time, or even a fridge my dad and uncles were still using ice boxes. 

Media doesn't waste their money to have influence. If that were the case then the suicide shows would just be dedicated towards killing their fanbase. They're not big tobacco. They make entertainment and merchandise.  Subliminal messages in films are a character drinking a coke and then you thinking that you can go for a coke right about now. I don't know how many people watch an anime that has a loli character in it and say man I could really go for fucking a kid right about now; or someone kills a kid in a movie and makes people think that they'll be like their hero Pennywise the dancing clown.  Nobody watched Gacy and thought that dressing up as a clown raping young men and hiding their bodies under the house was going to be their life's passion. 

It's not easy when you're japan. The culture and media is filled with spirituality. Also the Chinese hold them to a more strict guideline as they still blame them over WWII. China started their no ghost policy in the late 90s. That's why the 2017 film was banned, but they still had the ones done in the late 80s and early 90s. Films like Crimson Peak were also banned for having ghosts. Here's a list of some of the anime/manga they banned a few years ago. 
 

 

Terror in Resonance

Blood-C

Highschool of the Dead

Ergo Proxy

Parasyte

The Skull Man

Another

Inferno Cop

Afro Samurai

Tokyo Ghoul √A

Sword Art Online II

Tokyo ESP

Tokyo Ravens

Devil May Cry

RIN - Daughters of Mnemosyne

The Testament of Sister New Devil

Attack on Titan

Corpse Party

Strike the Blood

Death Note

Deadman Wonderland

Date A Live II

Psycho-Pass

Devilman Lady

School Days

Those Who Hunt Elves

Elfen Lied

High School DxD

Samurai Bride

So, I Can't Play H!

Girls Bravo: Second Season

Kanokon

Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero

Sakura Diaries

Black Butler

Claymore

Dance in the Vampire Bund

 

@HardcoreHunter China also has Hollywood's balls in a vice also  2016 Ghostbusters answer the call got banned in China  and frankly it's Mel needs to be banned because it's crap but  but they claim because they have ghosts in it it's disrespectful to the dead or something  also the remake of Red Dawn villains got change from the People's Republic of China to North Korea also you know Doctor Strange whitewashing a character so yeah the US and japan has Chinese censorship in our entertainment industry I say what the fuck 

Edited July 7, 2020 by ghostrek

[ghostrek]

1 minute ago, ghostrek said:

@HardcoreHunter China also has Hollywood's balls in a vice also  2016 Ghostbusters answer the call got banned in China  and frankly it's Mel needs to be banned because it's crap but  but they claim because they have ghosts in it it's disrespectful to the dead or something  also the remake of Red Dawn villains got change from the People's Republic of China to North Korea also you know Doctor Strange whitewashing a character so yeah the US and japan has Chinese sensors in our entertainment industry I say what the fuck 

also have a gut feeling the new Star Trek series have Chinese censorship issues also

[Chapinator_X]

Two years later, Ken Akamatsu is now a senator. 
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2022-07-10/manga-creator-ken-akamatsu-wins-seat-in-japan-house-of-councillors/.187556

 

[MasqueradeOverture]

You know what I hope is never censored and taught in middle school literature classes?

Redo Of Healer.